This is a Gateway W350A computer with windows vista.
It has a recover partition on drive D, and I do not have any recovery CD's nor DVD's.
I'm trying to restore it to factory settings, already backed up my stuff. First problem, the Gateway recover center wasn't there so I found it in the computer through command prompt and installed it. Every time I open it and choose Factory System Recovery it prompts me to restart the computer. When I do so, nothing happens. It only takes you to windows normally. Tried from system restore, again the computer restarts and just loads windows normally. Already looked at the recovery partition, the files were hidden and made them visible. However they still have a lock icon and can't get any to run.
I tried Alt+F10 and Ctrl+F10 after turning on the computer and that only takes me to BIOS setup. F5 alone and apparently there should be another option like "Fix my computer" which eventually can lead you to reset to factory settings, however that option is not listed. Only the Safe mode, safe mode with command prompt etc.
I tried all the F's by themselves, pressing Cntrl and Alt separately and none will take me to anything leading to the restoration.
***F11 (which according to Gateway is the one that should take you to the menu I'm looking for) pressed shortly after turning the laptop on makes a small purple loading bar appear at the bottom right of the screen which I presume should take me to the menu I am looking for, but it only appears to load, and then goes to a black screen and then I see the small bar loading windows at the middle of the screen and eventually takes me to windows.
How can I get it to reset to factory settings? help please.
ps. Someone suggested already a support link in the gateway website. Nothing from there worked as it tells you exactly what I already unsuccessfully tried.